This invention relates generally to the structure of shoes. More specifically, this invention relates to the structure of athletic shoes. Still more particularly, this invention relates to shoe soles that conform to the natural shape of the foot sole, including the bottom and the sides, when the foot sole deforms naturally during locomotion in order to provide a stable support base for the foot and ankle. Still more particularly, this invention relates to the use of deformation sipes such as slits or channels in the shoe sole to provide it with sufficient flexibility to parallel the frontal plane deformation of the foot sole, which creates a stable base that is wide and flat even when tilted sideways in natural pronation and supination motion.
The applicant has introduced into the art the use of sipes to provide natural deformation paralleling the human foot in pending U.S. application Ser. No. 07/424,509, filed Oct. 20, 1989, and No. 07/478,579, filed Feb. 8, 1990. It is the object of this invention to elaborate upon those earlier applications to apply their general principles to other shoe sole structures, including those introduced in other earlier applications.
By way of introduction, the prior two applications elaborated almost exclusively on the use of sipes such as slits or channels that are preferably about perpendicular to the horizontal plane and about parallel to the sagittal plane, which coincides roughly with the long axis of the shoe; in addition, the sipes originated generally from the bottom of the shoe sole. This application will elaborate on use of sipes that instead originate generally from either or both sides of the shoe sole and are preferably about perpendicular to the sagittal plane and about parallel to the horizontal plane; that approach was introduced in the '509 application. Thus, this application will focus on sipes originating generally from either or both sides of the shoe sole, rather than from the bottom or top (or both) of the shoe sole.
In addition to the prior pending applications indicated above, the applicant has introduced into the art the concept of a theoretically ideal stability plane as a structural basis for shoe sole designs. That concept as implemented into shoes such as street shoes and athletic shoes is presented in U.S. Pat. No. 4,989,349, issued Feb. 5, 1991 and Number 5,317,819, issued Jun. 7, 1994, and in pending U.S. applications Nos. 07/400,714, filed on Aug. 30, 1989; 07/416,478, filed on Oct. 3, 1989; 07/463,302, filed on Jan. 10, 1990; and 07/469,313, filed on Jan. 24, 1990, as well as in PCT Application No. PCT/US89/03076 filed on Jul. 14, 1989. The purpose of the theoretically ideal stability plane as described in these applications was primarily to provide a neutral design that allows for natural foot and ankle biomechanics as close as possible to that between the foot and the ground, and to avoid the serious interference with natural foot and ankle biomechanics inherent in existing shoes.
The applicant's prior application on the sipe invention and the elaborations in this application are modifications of the inventions disclosed and claimed in the earlier applications and develop the application of the concept of the theoretically ideal stability plane to other shoe structures. Accordingly, it is a general object of the new invention to elaborate upon the application of the principle of the theoretically ideal stability plane to other shoe structures.
It is an overall objective of this application to show additional forms and variations of the general deformation sipes invention disclosed in the '509 and '579 applications, particularly showing its incorporation into the other inventions disclosed in the applicant's other applications.
These and other objects of the invention will become apparent from a detailed description of the invention which follows taken with the accompanying drawings.